Trailers in Short - Do You Want To Play A Game Edition

The trailers never stop coming, nor, thankfully, do the game stop coming. And we have a slough of sequels heading our way quite soon. Are we excited? Are we dreading them? Are we bored now?

Let's see how you handle an Alien, how the bricks fit for Batman, Batman's new old toys, a Tomb Raider...rises, and Nate Drake get smacked around for 10's of hours of game play.

Us and guns, quite a culture.

Another tragic series of deaths at the hands of a gunman. It happens so regularly, you could be tempted to be glib. But their is nothing funny in these acts.

Yet their is something distinctly ridiculous in how some choose to look at the aftermath.

Tucker Carlson (Who doesn't wear a bow tie anymore,  because THEY ARE COOL NOW.) thinks the answer to people taking up firearms to massacre people is to be afraid of people dealing with mental illness.

These liberals. They don't know an AR-15 from . But mental illness? That's something we can all get around demonizing. Right?

He isn't alone in this as other across FOX News also are eager to point away from gun access to attack people in need of treatment, stigmatizing them.

Many would be happy to see complete databases of mental health data, as long as gun ownership won't be part of the record.

Ridiculous.

But let's be clear. Mental health is an important issue. And should be of interest. People in need of aid should get it, just like with all aspects of health care. But when Republicans bring it up it feels truly hollow. The likes of Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan always saw mental health as a place to cut, leaving many in need out on the streets.

If only Republicans actually cared about this issue. It's easier for them to demagogue it then care.

But more was going on at FOX News. Over at Fox and Friends they seemed to be coming up with a Video Game Registry. They saw value in seeing how often people buy violent video games.

Yeah. That could be a warning sign.

Someone stockpiling AR-15's? Eh. That's nothing odd. Someone who's played all the Call of Duty games, all the Splinter Cell games, and all the Halo games? That is a warning sign.

Yet, as others have pointed out, so many countries have avid video game playing populations. But they don't see the same levels of violence, and particularly gun violence. Somehow it isn't happening there.

But some people like to have something they can point at and send the angry mob after.

"Come out, Mario!"
"...Mario is in another castle...?"

But the guns? Heaven forfend if we bring up extended clips, armor piercing rounds, or guns that are better suited to assaulting your hometown bank, then taking down a stag! That would be beyond the pale.

Once this country was open to having reasonable limits on gun ownership. Some things were acceptable. Some things only a nut would try and own. But the gun industry saw another path. Paranoia. Fear. Hate. And, lo, their came the Preppers. And it's proven to be quite a racket.

So, yeah, if we had fewer of the "not" full automatic weapons around we would be safer. And if guys would stop trying to walk into department stores with giant knives strapped to their thighs, we'd all feel a little safer.

16-bit Doctor

16-bit Doctor Who, as if a game from the old Nintendo Entertainment System.

This hilarious and too true video never gets old, it gets more nostalgic.



If only someone would do a SNES version for the new season of Doctor Who.

Dungeons & Dragons as D&D

Okay, saw this tonight, and it is too funny not to post.

A cut of an old episode of the Saturday morning cartoon, Dungeons & Dragons, voiced over as if it is a gaming session of the D&D game.

Brilliantly true.



The old shows intro for some more nostalgia.

Riffing on Metroid

Here is a fun little editted together piece from the newer version of the game Metroid. It was melded with a collection of riffs from Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy. It is an excellent editing job and damn funny.

Amy Bishop - Using deaths to sell your own biases and causes

I was tempted to pass on this post, but I hit three examples and just had to go ahead.

In the wake of the sad events around which Bishop murdered and severally injured her colleagues, many have sought to use this as a way to support there claims and causes.  It is much like what we see in the wake of these sorts of tragedies.

Sal -> Darwinism
Sal Cordova is a creep who has decided to be all the more so by pointing to the fact Bishop was supporting the Clergy Letter Project.  He is pointing to "Survival of the Fittest" as a...damning point.  So being a biologist now damns evolution and surrounding ideas, any group that doesn't race to denounce any ties is in league with her...It's like the shit they use to do on the talk show on CNN, Crossfire.  Every show was calling out a person who acted or spoke wrong, and demanding the pundit on the other side denounced them.  It was pathetic.  And so is this.

Beck -> The violent left-wingers
Glenn Beck saw the events and decided it was an example of the ultra violent left wing.

She is part of a liberal group that backed Obama.  So they are all like her.  Now the fact among those dead are likely people who shared her politics...not relevant.

Boston Herald -> D&D
Yes, Dungeons & Dragons.  They went there.  And it is such a shitty story.  And unnamed source eagerly announced she met her husband playing the game and she was big time into the game.  A...damning point.  Then they trout out the old 30 year old points and evidence to damn the game (How many editions has it gone through since then?)

... 

The popular fantasy role-playing game has a long history of controversy, with objections raised to its demonic and violent elements. Some experts have cited the D&D backgrounds of people who were later involved in violent crimes, while others say it just a game. A federal appeals court recently upheld a prison ban on the game in Wisconsin, where prison officials reportedly testified they were afraid the game could promote "hostility, violence and escape behavior." 

Pathetic.  After all this death.  This is what the media gives us?

Online ads

I came across an interesting article, it notes an online game called Evony. An online game of some sort. They started out with a standard ad.



As the article notes it didn't stop there.

They began putting out upgraded ads. (You can see the others at the article site.)

Next has a young woman in fantasy dress, with the text, "Start your journey NOW, my Lord!"

Okay, not so bad. Attractive female getting attention, the car companies approve.

Then the next with two women, dressed and looking alike standing oddly against the other. The text, SAVE YOUR LOVER! Play Now, My Lord!"

Okay...starting to look like the cover of a romance, and not sure how twins convey saving a lover...are they asking?

So onto the next, attractive women on her knees with a sword dangling over her cleavage. The text, "Help! Save the Queen!"

Yeah, basic fantasy trope, queen endanger and all...really the sword seems to be more acting as a pointer to say look here.

Now to the next, with a lady, head back, cleavage out fully, sunlight against here and taking up half the image. Text says, "Play DISCREETLY on your browser NOW!" Then some more text about building an empire and ruling the world.

...The hell! Picture of cleavage, blond with her head back and eyes closed with the word discreetly displayed prominently...Are you getting the trend the ads are going for yet?

And the last one, which I don't think was an add for this game, or any game. In fact I thought it was one of the infinite multitude of dumb ads I see online. In it...a woman's chest in a black bra. The text at the top, "Best Free Web Game". Also written above the bra PLAY. Right beneath PLAY in tiny text, "Evony Free Forever."

Are they fucking kidding us? With the breast sitting there and all the other bold text, I keep missing the bit about Evony. Are they selling the game anymore?

More to the point who is there audience? If I went online to play who would I end up having around me? If I was a parent would I be warning my kids off this? And then again who is coming for the black bra and staying when they see a fantasy game? What is there niche?

I would also note in the trend we see in this line of ads I remembered in reading the article I had seen one other ad. It is like the first of the DISCREET ads. It is pretty much the same, but cropped. The effect is that at first glance that you see little or none of the low cut dress the character is wearing in it, so it amplifies the sense with the word discreet to make you think it is a sleazy ad using unclothed women.

It is all the lowest common denominator of marketing. Why can't we in this day take it up a notch.


Of course, all of this is also getting the game talked up...

One last roll of the die

Sadly, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has passed.

Nerds everywhere will be grieving: Gary Gygax has died. I haven't played the game in a long time, but I had a lot of fun with it in my undergraduate years — if they haven't succumbed to mold and decay, I have the original manuals somewhere down in my basement. I also had a set of miniatures, but those definitely got battered into shapelessness by my kids playing with them (but I win in the end, since my oldest son left a huge collection of his fancy miniatures at my house. Maybe I won't give them back.) My thanks to Gygax and his colleague Dave Arneson for some good old fun times with my geeky pals.

...

Gygax set down a lot of the basics of role playing games, and those things that expanded out from it.

He was a nice and creative fellow. And I have heard he was a kind guy, and good to know, and thrilled to meet with fans.

He will be missed. [Obvious RPG joke avoided.]

More links from Feministing

From Feministing:

Weekly Feminist Reader

On Iran's first female race car driver.

Henry Hyde, who worked hard to ensure that low-income women were denied reproductive health access, has died.Related: Medicaid covers penis pumps, but not abortion services.

I'll take "gender parity" for 500, Alex: This season, 52% of Jeopardy! contestants were women -- a vast improvement for a show that historically skews male.This Christmas, most girls are asking for toys designed with boys in mind.

Whatever happened to all the lesbian feminists?

Hillary Clinton's AIDS plan would strip out requirements that anti-HIV/AIDS programs discuss abstinence.

The New York Times characterizes Barack Obama as "postfeminist." WTF? (A longer post on the article to follow...) And Michelle Obama chatted with Rebecca Traister.

A new site, Abuse Aware, documents violence against women. (It features many of Donna Ferrato's groundbreaking -- and heartbreaking -- photos on the subject.)

On the unacceptable lack of coverage of Latasha Norman's disappearance and death. The major cable news networks couldn't find a few minutes in between all their Stacy Peterson updates to talk about Norman?

Extreme anti-choicers are flush with cash.

Sexist gamers rate the breasts of sexed-up video game heroines. Barf.

This not just with gamers. Wizard, the major comic book magazine, which has a close relationship with all the big comic publishers, has done the same. It has been rating the breast of female comic characters, much to the disgust of many online. The industry says it wants to bring girls into reading and buying their products. But the industry keeps sending this sort of message out simultaneously. Come on!

Did you have any idea that one of Bush's first actions in office (right after reinstating the Global Gag Rule, I'm sure) was to require that all women in the West Wing wear pantyhose at all times? Ugh.

How about some decent Hollywood biopics about black women?

Massachusetts gets 35-foot safety buffer zones around women's health clinics.

More deeply problematic language and comparisons from Mike Huckabee.

Feminists in Sweden are demanding the right to swim topless in public.

Our Bodies, Ourselves talks to Hillary Clinton about women's health initiatives in her health care plan.

Miss Landmine Angola is a beauty pageant for landmine survivors.

In case you had any doubt at all that anti-choicers aren't just anti-abortion -- they're anti-contraception.

An important post on the Saudi gang rape and threats to Muslim women.

Shockingly, the 1950s weren't really a golden era for women in college. (Jill has more.)

On Disney's booming "princess business." Plus, Deborah Siegel has a scathing review of Enchanted.

There are fewer women at the very top of the business world.

Stephanie Coontz on why marriage should be a private institution.

The major price hike in campus birth control prices has been all over the mainstream media lately. Now everyone needs to lean on Congress to do something about it before the end of this session.

Older white women are going to Kenya as sex tourists.

A follow-up on the panel discussion with leading voices in the opt-out debate.

A Wisconsin man accused of drugging his girlfriend to induce abortion against her will has been released from jail on bond. (We've said it before, and will say it again: forced abortion is NOT pro-choice.)

A Spanish woman is murdered after she rejects her boyfriends on-air proposal.

More on Hillary and misogyny.

There will be an open mic and abortion speak-out in NYC on December 14. Click here for more info.

And South Dakota DV shelter Pretty Bird Woman House needs your donation -- they need to buy a new building after their old one was broken into and burned down. (via Boltgirl.)

Video games as art.

There has been an interesting kerfuffle over the artistic value of the video game.

Movie critic Roger Ebert takes umbrage at the idea that a video game, with open endings and consumer controls is an art.

In response, Clive Barker, respected horror writer, retorted.

Responding to film critic Roger Ebert’s infamous comment that games cannot move beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art, Barker noted: “It’s evident that Ebert had a prejudiced vision of what the medium is, or more importantly, what it can be.”

“We can debate what art is, we can debate it forever. If the experience moves you in some way or another… Even if it moves your bowels… I think it is worthy of some serious study.”

Barker said he faced similar prejudice against his genre of choice, horror. “It used to worry me that the New York Times never reviewed my books… But the point is that people like the books. Books aren’t about reviewers,” he said.

“Games aren’t about reviewers. They are about players.”

Addressing Ebert’s criticism further, Barker explained: “I think that Roger Ebert’s problem is that he thinks you can’t have art if there is that amount of malleability in the narrative. In other words, Shakespeare could not have written Romeo and Juliet as a game because it could have had a happy ending, you know? If only she hadn’t taken the damn poison. If only he’d have gotten there quicker.

“If something is so malleable, full of possibilities not under the artist’s control, then it cannot be art,” he continued. “That’s where he is wrong.

“We should be stretching the imaginations of our players and ourselves. Let’s invent a world where the player gets to go through every emotional journey available. That is art. Offering that to people is art.”

“I’m not doing an evangelical job here. I’m just saying that gaming is a great way to do what we as human beings need to do all the time - to take ourselves away from the oppressive facts of our lives and go somewhere where we have our own control,” Barker concluded.

More from Ebert:

Ebert recently responded to Barker’s comments on his blog, and muddies the waters a bit by amending his stance to be that games cannot be “high” art...

Ebert dismisses the idea of art presenting choices, asserting that if one is offered ‘every emotional journey available’, then each is individually devalued...

He also took exception to Barker’s assertion that art can be linked to escapism. Ebert does not believe that the two are linked by necessity. Great movies can be escapist, but escapism itself does not make “great” art. He also called Barker’s desire for escapism as “spoken with the maturity of an honest and articulate 4-year old.”

Finally, Ebert puts forth his criteria for accepting a video game as art:

I mentioned that a Campbell’s soup could be art. I was imprecise. Actually, it is Andy Warhol’s painting of the label that is art. Would Warhol have considered Clive Barker’s video game ‘Undying’ as art? Certainly. He would have kept it in its shrink-wrapped box, placed it inside a Plexiglass display case, mounted it on a pedestal, and labeled it ‘Video Game.’

Ars Technica writer Ben Kuchera examines Ebert’s reply, and takes issue with the fact that Ebert seems willing to debate whether games can be art, but completely unwilling to step into the realm of gaming to see if his conclusions are well founded, citing gaming as a waste of time and “childish”:

I’ve enjoyed reading the back and forth between Barker and Ebert because I enjoy conversation about art, especially as it pertains to games, but I get upset when Ebert can’t be bothered to actually look at what’s he’s writing about, even topically. If he’s going to have a stance on an issue, he needs to become informed about it. He has a large audience, and they deserve better.

CM: The “high/great” art comments only add to the confusion as to what Ebert would actually classify as art. Sometimes he states that games cannot be art, at other times, they cannot be “high” art. So can games be “art” but not “high art”? On the subject of a “smorgasborg” of choices, does that mean that games that are non-sandbox are “art” because they DO restrict the player to an “inevitable conclusion”?

His criticism comes off more as ignorance and dislike of something he just doesn't get.

Gaming Addiction

GamePolitics.com:

Video game addiction?

To Jason Della Rocca, them’s fightin’ words.

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) headman appeared on MSNBC recently to dicuss the American Medical Association’s unsuccessful bid to have video game addiction classified as an official diagnostic disorder.

In lieu of a transcript or video of the interview, Della Rocca has updated his Reality Panic blog with a few thoughts on the subject of so-called game addiction:

There’s no denying the concern for someone that does something on an extremely excessive basis… In most cases, this has more to do with the person than the thing: mental stability, depression, social anxieties, low self-esteem, whatever…

Americans average approx 28 hours of TV watching a week. Stereotypical gamers do about 7 hours of gaming a week. That’s 4x more for TV. I don’t see any calls to declare TV watching as a formal disorder…
A formal declaration [of game addiction] is a precursor to further legislation and censorship by the government. And, as an expressive medium, video games should be given the same level of respect and protection as other forms of art and entertainment.

I have been there, drawn into a game. But if I look at the TV viewing my house in comparison, it is far far more. I have a TV on often when gaming. And when I get tired of playing, the game goes off, the TV stays on. And that isn't an addiction? No, wait. And that isn't an addiction.

Think about it.

Like I was looking for more reasons to dislike Mitt.

GamePolitics.com:

Following the release of a new TV ad on Monday, the Mitt Romney campaign has been hitting the video game content issue hard this week, most notably during a swing through Colorado.

A new press release lays out a Romney theme “protecting our children.” Following along the lines of the “ocean of filth” TV spot, the campaign pledge says in regard to video games:

Governor Romney Will Punish And Fine Retailers For Selling Excessively Violent And Sexually Explicit Video Games To Minors.

While the current system of voluntary self-regulation of video games has improved, we still need to do more to protect our children. There must be strong punishments and fines for retailers that sell violent and sexually explicit video games to minors.

GP: We’re not quite sure what Romney is saying here. While he gives props to the strides made by the ESRB, he’s clearly advocating retail sales legislation. Does he have a secret plan to circumvent the constitutional issues that have sunk every other such attempt?